


I Ain't No Nice Guy, After All

by KumikoIshida



Category: Slam Dunk
Genre: Lemon, M/M, Melancholy, Song Lyrics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-24 02:41:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17696078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KumikoIshida/pseuds/KumikoIshida
Summary: On the notes of a song by Motorhead, both Sakuragi and Rukawa realize that not everything went as planned.But maybe, there's no other way to live, and you just have to squeeze some happiness from where you can.





	I Ain't No Nice Guy, After All

“When I was young, I was the nicest guy I knew,  
I thought I was the chosen one.  
But time went by and I found out a thing or two,  
my shine wore off as time wore on...”

Lemmy Kilmister's rough and sensual voice waved into Kaede Rukawa's half-consciousness; he was filled up with painkillers and pretty far gone.  
Sprawled, more then sitting, on the couch in a flat he would soon be unable to afford, his left shoulder in the grip of a gnawing pain, that maybe didn't even exist for real, Rukawa stared at the lonesome led light of the stereo.  
He looked at his own thin legs, popping up from a pair of greyish shorts, and at his feet, in a pair of black flip-flops, stretched over a furry, stained carpet.

“I though that I was living out the perfect life,  
but in the lonely hours when the truth begins to bite,  
I thought about the times when I turned my back and stalled,  
I ain't no nice guy after all.”

He, as well as Lemmy, thought he was the chosen one, when he was young. Then, High School came, and with it the struggling knowledge that all his years of training could only mask one thing: practicing can make you perfect, of course, but being perfect doesn't mean you are the best.  
Sakuragi.  
Up to the third year, he was the star of the team. Erratic, dumb, slow-witted, as stubborn as a mule, he still had managed to get better day by day, playing by instinct, bouncing back perfectly from his back injury. Rukawa, to keep the pace with him, had doubled, then tripled his training, and in fact he was the one who had been chosen for the National Team, not Sakuragi; but he hadn't managed to give his best, there.  
Just with one person he was able to give his best, but he was too proud, too full of himself to admit it, and Sakuragi had never been called, and after two years spent warming up the bench his injury came, cursed but timed: a dislocation at his left shoulder, not a major problem but badly healed. Result? Worn out capsule, painkiller addiction, dead career.  
In his long period of degency, he had discovered at his expenses how much Sakuragi had had to be strong in the times following his injury, and one day he had remembered that time he had seen him, on the beach, and had showed him his All Japan jersey, the one he was wearing under his hoodie. At that time he had thought his message was clear, “This jersey should belong to you too”, but now that he focused the scene with inverted roles he realized that it must have sounded like nothing more than a sign of scorn.  
Kaede Rukawa, the wonderful, was not a nice guy, after all.

Rukawa closed his eyes and let his sleepiness take over. He fell asleep, searching and dreading the sleep at the same time, worn out by his depression but terrorized by the perspective of the frantic dreams that haunted his hours of rest.

“When I was young, I was the only game in town,  
I thought that I had it down for sure.  
But time went by and I was lost in what I found,  
the reasons blurred, the way unsure...”

Ozzy Osbourne. A pitchy man, a stutterer that had somehow managed to become a star. Like Hanamichi Sakuragi, who had gone from being a complete ignorant to being saluted and claimed by the whole school, sometimes even more than Rukawa.  
He had lived day by day as the laughingstock of his classroom, of his school, of his neighborhood, trying to convince himself he had everything under control, until he had met Haruko Akagi and finally he had been able to focus his energies in playing basketball, and his life, his convictions and the pillars on whom he had built his facade of ego-centrism had fallen.  
He stopped a dude that wanted to enter the night club at any cost with the mere touch of his hand on his sweaty chest: in five years of career as a doorman, he had never had to beat up anyone. His tonnage and his expression were enough to col the patron's jets. It was strange, being so feared and respected, and Hanamichi often questioned himself about the way the things were in his life, without finding an answer, whatsoever.

“I thought that I was living life the only way,  
But as I saw that life was more than day to day,  
I turned around, I read the writing on the wall,  
I ain't no nice guy after all.”

He kept telling to himself he was the best: he was the best punk of the neighborhood, he could do alone against more than a rival, he was always ready to take action in his friends' defense and never, never he had listened carefully to the voice that, from the murky bottom of his mind, kept on softly asking: “If you're the best, how come you weren't able to save your father?”. Then he had met him.  
Rukawa.  
It was in that very moment that the voice had gotten louder, penetrating, as sharp as the blade of a razor, and it cut, it cut, and the more his ego unweaved, the more he bragged, and transformed the tiniest progress into an unbelievable victory, a gargantuan conquer, and he laughed, he laughed, but his laughter seemed to be more screeching as the days went by, almost like the crackle of a crow.  
He knew Rukawa was the best. He knew that Haruko had every reason to be in love with him instead that falling for the silly clown that had proclaimed himself the Basketball Genius.  
Yet, he had hated him, for everything. It seemed like Rukawa couldn't move a finger without raising Sakuragi's rage: he hated him for being the object of Haruko's attentions, he hated him for becoming one of the best five of the prefecture, he hated him for being so fucking good, he hated him for that one time he had scorned him showing his All Japan jersey, while he was biting the bullet to not say a great big “fuck” to everyone and everything. He hated him, yet he knew his hate was irrational and nourished by envy.  
He hated him, when instead he wanted to get closer and ask: “I want to become like you. Please, teach me how to do it”. And he had glorified himself in the attention received when, later on, he had managed to channel his strength in a more mature play.  
Hanamichi Sakuragi, the Basketball Genius, wasn't a nice guy, after all.

Rukawa woke up all of a sudden, breathless, his shoulder a knot of pain. He got up from the couch, moaning at the stinging bolts that crossed the left side of his body, from his wrist to the trapezium, and spasmodically looked for a tablet that would've helped him to feel better, at least for a few hour.  
He didn't realize he was trembling like a leaf, nor he realized he was covered in cold sweat from his head to his toes, and he couldn't know his pupils were dangerously dilated; and of course, he wouldn't have been able to notice he was in the middle of an abstinence crisis, because the only thing he could manage to think was that he needed a painkiller so bad, right now, and there seemed to be none left in his house.  
Wobbling, without even putting on his shoes or a coat, he went out to look for a pharmacy that was opened 24/24.  
He was drooling.

Sakuragi went out of the night club, sighing. It had been a chaotic evening, with a few really drunk men and an unpleasant episode that included an attempted rape and two police cars.  
He looked at the opposite sidewalk, where a guy wearing shorts and flip-flops was limping, leaning to the wall; he could heard from where he was his moans of pain, and he couldn't help but cross the street to give him a hand, to silence Lemmy and Ozzy, that in his voice were still singing: “I ain't no nice guy, after all”.  
The guy lost his balance and fell, but Sakuragi was fast to catch him and uphold him: -Hey, man, are you alright?- he asked.  
-Let go of me... you moron... pharmacy...- a known voice grumbled.  
-Rukawa? You're all busted up!- Sakuragi said.  
-Let go of me... pharmacy...  
-What happened to you?  
-Let me go, I said!- Rukawa, only powered by abstinence, set himself free from Sakuragi's grip, but lost his balance again. The redhead shoved him to sit on a doorstep, and Rukawa screamed in pain.  
-You won't reach the pharmacy, not in that state! What do you need? I'll go and get it for you.- Rukawa stared grimly at him from below, tried to get up but gave up. He held his left arm against his body and said: -Demerol. Hurry up. It hurts.- Sakuragi opened his mouth as to speak, but then he just left for the pharmacy, three blocks from there.

“In all the years you spend between your birth and death,  
you know there's lots of times when you should have saved your breath!”

Rarely, Sakuragi knew when to shut up when it was needed, but apparently that night some powers were acting, powers that were stronger than him, stronger than Rukawa, stronger than both. Sakuragi hadn't wasted his breath to underline that Rukawa was in abstinence from medicines and he had wisely hidden that he knew because he had been around that block himself. The phantom pain, that thing the doctors had warned him about, was Rukawa's real enemy. Sakuragi knew about his injury, that got back to almost one year prior, and he also knew that it wasn't so severe to justify such a pain.

“It comes as quite a shock when the truth leads to a fall,  
I ain't no nice guy after all.”

-Here you are. A voice snatched Rukawa from his delirium. Two fingers shoved a pill in his mouth, and he swallowed it, grateful, with difficulty because his mouth was now dry.  
-I'll walk you home.- two strong arms lifted him up and carried him for neverending minutes, while Rukawa cradled himself into the arms of the man that was transporting him, in the relief that the Demerol had already started to provide.  
He managed to reach the couch on his own legs, he lied back and turned the stereo on again with the remote.  
-What's happening to you, Rukawa?- Sakuragi's voice asked gently.

“When I was young, I was the nicest guy I knew,  
I thought I was the chosen one.  
But time went by and I found out a thing or two,  
my shine wore off as time wore on...”

-You. You are happening. I've always thought I was the best, but it's not true. You have always been the best.- Rukawa blabbered, dizzy for the medicine.

“I thought that I was living out the perfect life,  
but in the lonely hours when the moon's the only light  
I thought about the times when I turned my back and stalled...”

-That's bullshit, Rukawa. It's always me, the same old loser.  
-Meanwhile, you bought me Demerol. I wouldn't have done that for you.- Rukawa got closer, without knowing why, to Sakuragi. He saw his brown eyes darken, and his eyebrows bow in a clear expression of rage: -It wasn't Demerol, you smartass, it takes the recipe to get Demerol.

“I ain't no nice guy, after all...”

-What?  
-I bought you some ibuprofen. You've got a problem, Rukawa.

“I ain't no nice guy, after all...”

-You fooled me!  
-You are fooling yourself! It doesn't hurt, that shoulder, you're just addicted, nothing more!  
-Yeah! Nothing more! I have nothing more! Nothing, but knowing I'm not the best!  
-Well, then welcome to my fucking world!- Sakuragi's mouth was a few inches from Rukawa's, and he charged at it, to close it, to shut him up, because he was telling the truth, and Rukawa didn't want to hear the truth, he just wanted to stay in his Demerol-induced state of drowsiness. He opened his lips, as if doing so he could water down his words with his own fragile justifications, the one he gave every month to his family doctor to convince him to give him another recipe for his painkillers.  
Sakuragi's tongue dueled with his, with no reason but the will to prevail above the other, that will that had fueled him during all three years of high school, and with the tested move of the hand on the chest he slowly pushed Rukawa towards the couch, without moving his lips from Rukawa's. With one hand on his back and one on his chest, he forced him to lay back and covered his body with his own; it was only when he felt Rukawa's erection rubbing against his own that he realized he was aroused, at the end of his rope.  
He hadn't felt that way with any of the girls he had had sex with.  
Rukawa's hand grabbed his rumps; their limbs rubbed strongly against each other, and the friction was so intense to be almost painful.  
-Baka Kitsune, drop it!- Hanamichi muttered, but his protest remained unheard. Rukawa closed his mouth with his own, again, while his hands were going down, to unbutton those annoying trousers. Sakuragi wanted to stop, he needed to stop.  
He was taking advantage of a forlorn who wasn't in his right mind, and knowing he wasn't a nice guy wouldn't help him live with himself in the days that would have followed that mistake; because it couldn't be nothing but a mistake.  
-Ru...ka...wa...- he syllabled, while Rukawa's left hand cramped on his hard penis and the left gently caressed his testicles.  
-S...top...- he tried to resist, but his protest sounded sluggish even to his own ears. The truth was that a part of him was honored to be in Kaede Rukawa's arms, and that he was touching him with such greed, that he was marking him with his lips on the neck, on the chest and on the cheeks..

It was no longer the abstinence to speak.  
It was Kaede Rukawa, clear-minded like he hadn't been in months.  
Touching Hanamichi Sakuragi had woken up in him the desire to feel alive again, to try to get up again, to resume fighting. -If this pain...- he muttered on his lips, -If this pain is just an illusion...- he closed a bit more the hand that was slipping over Sakuragi's penis and heard him moan, -Then show me what's real...- he twitched to take his hand, still on his own chest; oddly enough, his shoulder didn't react with the usual stabbing pain. He brought Sakuragi's finger to his own lips, looking in his eyes as they grew darker with desire while he understood what Rukawa was willing to do.  
He closed his eyelids, while Sakuragi's hand gently caressed his chest, his abdomen, his penis that was shrinking out of control, to finally reach his destination.  
Sakuragi's fingers made their own way into Rukawa's body, slowly, hesitant, doubtful. -Remember me what it's like to be alive.- Rukawa whispered, and the touch deepened.  
-Are you sure?- Sakuragi asked in a low voice, putting his penis against his entrance. Rukawa grabbed him by his butt and shoved him inside himself; immediately, the pain claimed his price, stealing him a scream. Sakuragi made a stand, and Rukawa's weak arms couldn't do anything to force him to go on.  
-Slow down, Baka Kitsune, what's that? Do you want to die?  
-Yes. I want it, a bit.- Rukawa confessed, enjoying the pain he was feeling: it was somehow different from the one that his shoulder caused him, it was pure, neat, located. He tasted it, from the sensation of his stretched skin around Sakuragi's penis, motionless inside of him, to the deaf pulses of the lower part of his abdomen; he felt it dwindle, little by little, and it didn't come back when Sakuragi pushed again, with slow, sensual movements, deeper and deeper.  
And then, a sensation that was far from pain, but almost as stultifying.  
Pleasure.  
And Rukawa remembered.  
He remembered how it was when running to the basket was the most natural thing on earth, he remembered how it was to be loved in spite of his grumpiness, he remembered Sakuragi's needling and he realized he had looked for every single fight, every single punch, every single shove.  
He raised his glace into the brown eyes of the man that was towering him and he was astonished to find them filled with pain, bewilderment and rage: -You're not being rational.- Sakuragi said, freezing.  
-I am. I haven't been this rational in months.  
-I'm raping you.  
-And I am raping you.- Rukawa moved his hips back and forth, stealing a moan of pleasure to Sakuragi, who articulated: -I don't want to screw you.  
-Then, make love to me.- Rukawa leaned forward to gain Sakuragi's lips, and the redhead started to go along with his hips movements. He moaned with pleasure at the touch of Sakuragi's rough hand around his penis, and he moaned with pleasure hearing his husky sigh, and he moaned with pleasure feeling his erection contracting inside of him in the twitches of an orgasm from which there was no coming back. He melted in his hand, and greeted with both satisfaction and regret the feel of Sakuragi's now soft penis, sliding out of him. He cuddled into his arms, making himself a cocoon, and he breathed his smell; he didn't want to die anymore, he felt alive with Hanamichi's chest pressed against his head, and Hanamichi's legs tied up with his, and with Hanamichi's sperm slowly dripping on his butt.  
He was tired, but of a good weariness, the same that caught him after the training in high school. The kind of tiredness that leads to a serene rest, that in turn leads to an awakening filled with promises.  
He would have had to fight a hard struggle to set himself free from Demerol and pain and depression, but now he knew he could do it.  
-My shoulder...- he said.  
-Does it hurt?- Sakuragi asked, gently caressing it.  
-No.- Rukawa answered, sliding away in a dreamless sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked this one as well.  
> It was a hard one, written while I was realizing I ain't no nice guy, either.  
> But, as Lemmy sings, my shine wore off as time wore on, and maybe that's the way life's meant to be.  
> Leave me a comment if you liked it, and to everyone who'll read my best wishes to find a little bit of joy here and there.  
> XOXO  
> Kumiko


End file.
